The number this week is: Three

Last week I started my “Weekly Word” with the word, “Spirit.”  How could I resist this time with Sunday being Trinity Sunday?

The whole concept of Trinity is mysterious.  And not just a mystery boggling the mind of most of us trying to understand it, but an actual, official Mystery. The ancient creeds consistently call the triune nature of God— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer— a Holy Mystery.  The exact way God can be One yet Three keeps defying various attempts at logic, yet it is consistently experienced as true by the faithful.  So theologians write explanations and preachers keep working on analogies like St. Patrick’s famous shamrock.  But most of us, when singing a Doxology know that we mean God is both the Three Persons and yet One God, have a hard time with the details.  And frankly, even as a “paid professional” in such subjects, I mostly pass up trying to outline all the theological subtleties and work with the certainty in my ribcage that I experience God as both three and one.  Modern confessions of faith seem to settle on the old word, “Triune” God, which is pretty much the same as declaring it a mystery for us to believe and to find comfort in instead of to understand.

For often-intellectual UCC and Presbyterians, it is hard not to be able to articulate the complex theology of the Trinity, but I notice that we can all sing “Holy, Holy, Holy!” with lots of feeling and lots of gusto and lots and lots of faith.

Sure, I’ll take a run at “explaining” the doctrine, but mostly I just feel it in my bones as true.  Just like 2000 years of believers before us.  Come join the celebration this Sunday.  And bring someone with you to enjoy it, too!

                                                                              In Christ,
                                                                                David

Please sign up for one of the small, informal conversations during May and early June for people to share their experiences of this church over the years (not just in the past three) so I can understand the landscape and history.  Either email the church at office@fccithaca.org, call the church office at 607-257-6033, or sign up outside the church library and sanctuary on one of the many clipboards.  I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible!


Texts For Sunday Worship:
Hebrew Bible        Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
New Testament     Romans 5:1-5
Gospels               John 16:12-15